Page 19

“ W e’ll go,” the lumpy councilor says, surprising me. He points to Dolor and Miriam. “The three of us are known enough to these men, and there are only a few inns suitable for a house lord. We’ll go tonight—and be there when they wake tomorrow.”

“Take a brace of guards—no, do it,” Fortiss says, overriding Miriam’s instant protest. “They don’t have to loom over you, but they should be nearby if you need them.

I’m not willing to assume goodwill when these men aren’t showing themselves.

And the warriors too—if your houses are here, you should know. ”

He shuts down the meeting quickly then, with assurances to the council that he won’t do anything without consulting them first. Then Fortiss and my father argue some more about when Lemille will be able to see Rihad.

Even with all that, in less than a quarter hour, only the three of us remain in the hallway outside of Fortiss’s chambers. There’s something unspoken in the air between us—an energy of past, present, and possibility.

Fortiss holds my gaze for a quick, stolen moment, but Tennet doesn’t waste any time.

“What exactly is your plan to give Fortiss the sight, Talia?” he demands, the question clearly one he hasn’t been able to let go.

“Not the priest, I hope. You can’t rely on visions and portents if you mean to truly defend the Protectorate. ”

“Let’s get some air.” Fortiss waves us to follow him, and we fall silent as we move down the hallway toward the wide overlook.

When we step out on the decking, Tennet looks around, scowling.

The torches are lit, brightening the space immediately around us, but the moon is full and bright, washing the entire plane in a blue-white glow that extends all the way to the coliseum.

And there…I smirk as Tennet jolts in surprise, then strides out to the farthest edge of the overlook, peering hard. “There’s fire there,” he says, squinting. “There—and again. Shooting up, you see that? Who’s in there?”

“Caleb,” I say succinctly, dropping my hands to my belt.

It’s a move I’ve watched warriors make so often, I assumed it was simply for comfort, but no.

It’s a subtle power stance, both grounding and preparatory at once.

I grin as Tennet scowls at me. “He’s training newly banded warriors there—soldiers all.

Their Divhs are strong, but not as imposing.

Suitable to guard a village or come together to serve several families in a conflict. ”

“That’s not what Divhs are for,” he retorts.

“Not up to now, no,” Fortiss agrees. His gaze, too, is on the coliseum—fully a quarter hour’s easy canter from the base of the mountain.

“Up to now, there’s been no need for Divhs to do much of anything but display their might and power—so strong that only marauders and fools try to take up arms against each other.

It’s been an effective form of deterrence to incidental battles these past five hundred years.

Thievery and even murder happens, but not on any scale.

That is the peace that the Divhs have provided us, a boon but also a curse.

Now, with this threat that looms from the west, the playing field changes.

We can’t rely only on the mightiest of Divhs.

We may need them all to come to our aid. ”

“And we’re back to this nebulous threat.

” Disdain weighs heavily in Tennet’s tone.

“I have to say, I’d be inclined to side with the lords gathering in Trilion on this score.

It’s not that I don’t believe that Rihad thought he was summoning creatures of true power and evil—I do.

You don’t kill that many warriors without a strong belief that you have some mighty force on your side.

But he also could simply have been mad, duped into believing that legends and myths are true. He wouldn’t be the first.”

“I saw the creature he summoned, Lord Tennet,” I counter quietly.

Tennet turns to me, and in that easy motion I feel his warrior energy, both predator and protector.

I recognize that same energy in myself. “You forget, I was willing to do anything to understand why my brother died and who killed him. My search took me to Lord Rihad’s chambers.

I hid myself away, waiting for a chance to search it when it was quiet.

Before I got that chance, I heard him speak his incantations, and I saw who responded.

A creature that could have been a man, but was covered in snakes, standing in the heart of Rihad’s great fireplace, overtaken but not consumed by flames.

It noticed me almost as soon as I laid eyes on it, and I fled.

But it was real, Tennet—or as real as anything I’ve ever seen.

It wasn’t an illusion created to dupe me, but something that Rihad was actually interacting with. ”

“You ran,” he echoes, focusing on what I consider to be the least important piece of the story. “Ran where? Is that when you were discovered by Rihad?”

“Oh—well, no.” I smile a little as I remember that fateful night. “I ran like mad out here, then jumped off the edge.”

Tennet glances over the railing to the wide expanse below. “You jumped. Meaning, your Divh caught you and carried you the rest of the way down.”

He looks at Fortiss. “Do all the Divhs who participated in the Tournament of Gold perform such tricks on demand? I’ve never tried such a thing with mine.

We bonded when my father finally gave up the band a year ago—an act I’m convinced sent him into his final decline, if I’m being honest—and I’ve never felt right summoning it just for my own needs.

It’s the guardian of our holding, and that’s not a gift I take lightly. ”

I bristle at the implied insult, but Fortiss cuts across my ready response. “Talia’s connection to her Divh—to all her Divhs—is unusual,” he says, his tone placating. “There’s no wrong way for a warrior knight to interact with your Divh.”

“There’s definitely not,” I put in, irritated at being interrupted. “You simply ask for what you wish.”

“If only it were that simple for all warriors, Lady Talia.”

Tennet turns sharply at the new voice that floats to us across the open space of the overlook, which allows me to hide my grin.

I pivot as well to see Nazar step out from the shadows.

The priest of the Light is dressed in his heavy dark robes of deep blue, his lean face dominated by solemn eyes that study Tennet with an intensity I know all too well.

“Good evening, Lord Tennet,” he murmurs. “May the Light shine upon you as you lead your house to glory. I would have come to assist you with the transition from father to son, had you need of me. I understand the Twelfth House doesn’t have its own priest.”

“Priest Nazar,” Tennet says, surprising me by lifting his right fist to his heart, the same gesture that would normally be accorded to another lord, despite his uncertainty about the priest. “We could have used you, but we made it through. My father was a proud man and didn’t want to admit the need.

He particularly didn’t want to admit it to Lord Lemille. ”

I grimace, understanding completely. Tennet wasn’t supposed to exist, and nobody would believe that Orlof would give up the band to a boy of fourteen, especially when, a year ago he would only have been thirteen.

But why had Orlof decided to give up the band at all—has he been ill for some time?

I have so many questions, but once again I’m stymied.

“You haven’t summoned your Divh since you were first banded?” Fortiss asks and Tennet nods, dropping his hands to his belt in a move I again appreciate.

“I wanted to, certainly, but no—save once,” Tennet says.

“My father, as I say, was a proud man, and he was doing what he needed to so that he would ensure the future of his house. He was also dying. I didn’t know it at the time that he gave up the band, and neither of us expected his decline to be so precipitous after it.

By the time he finalized the marriage contract with the Tenth House, he was visibly fading before my eyes.

Upon his death, I summoned our Divh to send him to the Light in accordance with his wishes, but in the weeks that followed, I haven’t sought its aid. ”

It ? I send the question out into the starlit sky and hear Gent’s huff of amusement in return.

Tennet gestures to the edge of the overlook. “I see now I’ve missed out on honing its skills for uses other than outright protection. I confess, it never occurred to me to ask.”

“Lady Talia is correct in saying that you simply have to ask your Divh for the aid you need, but in your case—and yours, Lord Protector Fortiss—you were constrained by the beliefs and training handed down from your fathers,” Nazar says.

“So, in some ways Lady Talia had the benefit of not knowing what she could and couldn’t ask.

The rule of tradition has played long and heavily in the actions of our warriors.

It has served us well for hundreds of years. It’s also kept us in check.”

Tennet narrows his eyes. “Us?” he repeats. “You mean the whole of the Protectorate, or all of the Imperium as well?”

“Both,” Nazar says. “And I also mean us. The four of us, all for different reasons.”

“But how…” His words fall away as Nazar shifts his robes back over his left shoulder, then peels back the sleeve from his wrist. There, the warrior band that is all that is left of Nazar’s bond with his own Divh gleams from where it is buried deep in his wrist. The heavy scarring above it pays testament to the long ago attempts to unband him from his Divh.

He stares from the band back into Nazar’s face.

“So, it’s true. I assumed councilor Miriam was lying to put off Lemille. ”

I jolt at the harshness of his tone and at the rudeness of his words.

“Lord Tennet,” Fortiss protests. “Remember yourself. In the Protectorate, a man’s story is his own to reveal in his own time. Nazar is both warrior and priest. He has served the Protectorate in both capacities well, and that’s all we need to know.”

“Lord Tennet’s confusion is valid,” Nazar says, lifting a hand.

He smiles a little at Tennet’s confusion.

“I confess, I was grateful for the Protectorate practice of asking no questions when I came to this land. Lord Lemille cared only that I was a priest of the Light, able to help tutor his son Merritt in the ways of a warrior and give my blessing when the time came for the transfer of the band. He also enjoyed hearing the stories I could share about the capital city and the excess of the Imperator and his wives. But he didn’t care about my own, personal history. ”

My brows shoot up. Wives ? The history of the Imperium we were force-fed as children in the Tenth House never actually detailed the personal life of the current Imperator, and most definitely had never included the idea that the man had multiple wives.

In fact, now that I thought about it, the amount of recent history that I knew about the Imperium could barely fill a thimble.

“We don’t either.” Fortiss tries again to preserve Nazar’s privacy. “A man is as good as his sword and his service here, Priest Nazar. Miriam has already explained your story. It’s enough.”

“Wise counsel, but unnecessary in this case.” He turns to Tennet, but he speaks to and for all of us, I think, bonding himself to our group as surely as he is bonded to his Divh.

“I wasn’t born a priest, Lord Tennet. But I was born into a family that once, long ago, protected the interests of the Imperium.

Not all warriors who served in the Great War remained here.

Those who sought to advance their interests closer to home accompanied the battle party back into the Hallowed Lands.

There they were feted, given high positions in government and sizable allowances by the Imperium in exchange for their willingness to serve, should the need ever arise.

Though the money petered out after the first Imperator passed to the Light, the honor remained.

Some warriors let their connections lapse, choosing not to pass on their band—and every generation, there were a few more of those.

When a new Imperator was crowned, all remaining warriors were called to give an accounting in a great procession of battle Divhs, a three-week celebration to honor the past and pledge allegiance to the future.

Eventually, though, the stories of the Protectorate faded, and the Imperator’s councilors grew suspicious of warriors with so much power.

Those families who wished to preserve their connection to their Divhs moved farther and farther away from the capital city, coming back only for the grand procession.

Some fled into the Protectorate itself, and others, again, let their connection fade away.

Eventually, there were only a dozen of us.

And then a new successor was born fifty years ago, and to honor his arrival, the current Imperator decreed the forced unbanding of its remaining warriors.

They made a great display of another allowance of wealth settled upon each of the warriors and their families, but that was cold comfort as you may imagine. ”

“What a waste,” Tennet mutters, but he looks queasy as he stares at Nazar’s scarred forearm. “I can’t see how you could survive that…or why you’d want to.”

“Many didn’t,” Nazar agrees. “It was a brutal ceremony. The warriors who survived either joined the priesthood or secluded themselves with their families. Many of them migrated to the edges of the hallowed lands, hoping that they would be reunited with their Divh when they returned to the Light. None of us thought anything but death would allow that reconnection.”

“But clearly, you did reconnect. How did it happen? This was during the Tournament of Gold?”

“It doesn’t matter how it happened,” Fortiss interjects, and there’s an edge to his voice I don’t quite understand. “What matters is we have another Divh to aid us. We’ll need every one we can get.”

With a flourish, he throws his own cape over his shoulder, baring his left sleeve.

His band clearly lies beneath the silky fabric of his tunic.

When he speaks again, there’s an odd timbre to his voice, and a curious compulsion comes over me, making my own band tighten on my arm, and my blood hum with urgency.

“We should introduce you, Lord Tennet. And be introduced as well.”

He drops his hand, and the wide plain before us is suddenly…not so empty.

Three enormous Divhs stare back at us.